Chest of Drawers

Marc Spagnuolo

At first glance, the Chest of Drawers may appear to be a rather advanced project. But you'll be surprised at how easy it is when you see all the steps laid out in a sensible order. We provide enough detail in this series that even an absolute beginner can successfully build this project.

Here's what you'll learn how to build:

What You’ll Receive:

Hours of detailed video instruction showing every step of the build, from wood selection to finishing.

What You’ll Learn:

Frame & Panel construction

Web frame (dust frame) construction

How to make and use story sticks

Creating curved templates

Cutting curves

Making a flush trim router jig

Sliding Dovetails

Alternative leg designs

Drawer construction and fitting

Reinforced Dovetail Drawers

How to apply a water-based finish via HVLP

Milling extra wide boards

Mortise and tenon joints

Routing grooves

Cutting tenons, grooves, and dados at the table saw

Working with large sheets of plywood

What You’ll Need:

Jointer and Planer (if not buying pre-milled stock)

Tablesaw

Bandsaw (or Jigsaw)

Miter Saw, Drill, Router (or Router Table)

Reviews:

Marc does a fabulous job with this build. With his easy listen technique, he shows you each step. Each video lesson is first class.

Chris

Guild Member

This was the first Guild project I purchased, and boy did it not disappoint. The instruction is amazing, there’s a wealth of techniques covered, and the design is beautiful. While I haven’t built this full chest of drawers as designed here, I’ve adapted the design and techniques into a bookcase and a lateral file cabinet in the same aesthetic, and they turned out beautifully. Could not recommend this more.

Alex Leffelman

Guild Member

Wonderful heirloom piece

This is Renée’s Dresser, made for my wife to reside in our newly renovated NC mountain home. I used Marc’s basic web frame design, incorporated Mission style elements, breadboard ends on the top and expanded the dresser to 12 drawers using SketchUp. The project presentation was thorough and fun and I went back to it many times over in the 200+ hours of the build. All of those drawer element x12 were especially time consuming. The drawer boxes are made from re-puposed pine shutters from the pre-renovation house. I especially enjoyed the precision joinery and the emphasis on hand tools to fine tune the myriad of parts that had to fit together. Thanks, Marc. You are a gifted teacher.

About Your Instructor:

Marc is a podcaster, video producer, woodworking enthusiast, and author of the book Hybrid Woodworking. He has contributed articles and video content to FineWoodworking.com, Popular Woodworking Magazine, WOOD Magazine, and Woodcraft Magazine. He is also the host of The Wood Whisperer, an instructional woodworking video series that’s been going strong since 2006. He is also the owner and operator of The Wood Whisperer Guild and the Wood Talk Podcast. He has taught classes at the William Ng School, Marc Adams School, Weekend with Wood, Fine Woodworking Live, as well as Rockler and Woodcraft stores. He also speaks periodically at woodworking events like AWFS and IWF.